Originally, NASA excluded women from space flight. Eventually, NASA relented and opened the application process to everyone, regardless of race or gender. From a 1977 candidate pool of 8,000, six elite women were selected - Sally Ride, Judy Resnik, Anna Fisher, Kathy Sullivan, Shannon Lucid, and Rhea Seddon. The author shows these brilliant and courageous women enduring claustrophobic - and sometimes deeply sexist - media attention, undergoing rigorous survival training, and preparing for years to take multi-million-dollar payloads into orbit.